Well, never seen THAT before...

[JMS]

Here's the sequence of events:

My primary M&P9, a 2009-bought one with a Storm Lake fitted barrel. Installed a new front sight, was getting the thing dialed in for windage @ 25. Freedom Munitions "new" 115gr RN, which I was using to get a general read on where it was printing (before confirming with 124gr GDHP).

First round in the mag fires. Next trigger pull is mush, instead of BANG. Started to do IA, but stopped myself, looked and saw that next round was hung up.

Bopped the backplate to see if it'd go into battery, no joy. Download, inspect that 2nd round to see if something about it was wonky. Nope.

Jam it back into the mag, re-insert into slidelocked pistol, attempt to drop the slide. Nuh-uh. Remove mag and round, try to do a chamber-check by just dropping the round into the chamber on it's own. No dice.

Decide to check for a squib, despite having not noted either audible pop or reduced recoil. Nope....but lo and behold, there's a visible line/rim about halfway into the chamber. Nabbed a thin punch from my range bag and teased out what appeared to be the "upper" half of a 9mm brass casing.

I didn't manage to save it, and spent some time fruitlessly searching for the "lower" half of it.

But, after reassembling everything and shooting for another little bit, it happened again. Cleared the chamber without having to disassemble, kept what I'd found. The case-rim end of the brass had thankfully landed on the table. Here's the evidence. The piece on the right was in the chamber, and I think I have it with the mouth facing up, judging by the marks.

http://i764.photobucket.com/albums/xx287/santoro0313/FullSizeRender.jpg (http://s764.photobucket.com/user/santoro0313/media/FullSizeRender.jpg.html)

That's a near-perfect, symmetrical cut across the width of the brass; there's no tearing, bulges, anything like that. I'm amazed, as the only case failures and whatnot I've seen, to date, all exhibited some kind of specific deformation, bulge, or asymmetric tearing.

My question is: What the HELL...!?

[JBP55]

I suppose it could happen to any ammunition but 2 in one range session? I try to stay with Speer, Federal, Winchester ammunition.

[CCT125US]

That is certainly worthy of a phone call to Freedom Munitions. I have used 1000 rds of thier 147gr remanufactured, and was very impressed with it. Clean, consistant and on my with my handloads. I just received a case of thier new 147gr and noticed a ring around the case where it transitions from thick to thin. I have yet to shoot it so I don't have any empties. Here is a pic of new 147gr.
2992

Well I decided to go pull a round, and see what was inside. You can clearly see the step in case thickness. Not saying it's good or bad, just showing.

2993

[Luke]

The last 500 (and first time buying from freedom) I shot of theres had massive issues with bullet seating depth. It's so bad that now I take a tray out of a box and look down at the primer aide and just grab a few and throw them away. I'm sure they would shoot find but I wasn't going to try.

[ranger]

I ran across a bunch of that brass at my local range. I had a series of out of spec reloads from these "step" 9mm brass where the case bulged during reloading and the round did pass the go-no gauge and would not chamber in my M&P. I watch for these and toss them in the scrap brass box now.

[Kyle Reese]

JMS,
This is the universe commanding you to get a CGW P-09. :cool:



(joking)

[JMS]

When it happens, it'll be an 07....which is what an 09 looks like to a frost giant with hands that can carry 112 plastic shopping bags full of soup cans without discomfort!!

("This just in, on your Tuesday evening: A large fellow just pounded an average-sized fellow into the floor of the NRA HQ range like tent peg, while participating in a local shooting competition. Full story at 11.")

[dudley0]

JMS,

Do you have a close time frame of when you purchased the ammo?

I only ask because I have a case or so of that ammo sitting. Have not started shooting it yet because I am still burning up the reman I had.

Have shot Freedom ammo in the past and didn't have any troubles but this seems too odd with more than one failure.

Now I need to get them out for a quick visual check and maybe run the calipers on them.

[JMS]

Time-frame is to within two particular orders, the first placed 10/7/14, the other 10/14/14..... I'm presuming that the lot number is the lowermost number on the tag on the boxes, and not the bar-code: 9838-9272-20-05

[Tamara]

That brass looks wronger than... well, a very wrong thing.

[BobLoblaw]

That brass looks wronger than... well, a very wrong thing.

Please oh please tell me Tam isn't running out of analogies. That would be worse than... Dammit, I had something for this..


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dudley0]

Time-frame is to within two particular orders, the first placed 10/7/14, the other 10/14/14..... I'm presuming that the lot number is the lowermost number on the tag on the boxes, and not the bar-code: 9838-9272-20-05

The stuff I have from that era is reman.

It all looks good from the outside.

[mizer67]

I believe that brass is made by Anatolia Cartridge Industry Co. LTD of Turkey.

I'm no metalurgist (paging Mr. Reihl) but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night I'd venture a guess that the "step" in the brass creates a weak point between the thin and thick sections that fails, and that it's a by product of the mfg. process.

There are failures like this on other sites with this brass as well. While I doubt it's dangerous with a std. pressure 9mm load, I wouldn't be buying any of this stuff after I'd shot it up and certainly wouldn't reload any of it, you're just asking for trouble then.

Freedom Muntitions and LAX, amongst others, use this brass.

[LHS]

I read this thread just after ordering a second case of 115gr ball from Freedom Munitions. Today, I was picking up brass and noticed that my Freedom stuff all had visible primer flow/cratering, and all the brass had that 'step'. A friend of mine was shooting some newly imported Pobjeda steel-cased Bosnian 9mm today, and it had a similar (and if anything, more pronounced) 'step' in the case wall, but nowhere near as much cratering/flow. I didn't have any other brass 9 ball on hand to shoot alongside the Freedom, but the stuff does make me a bit nervous.

[LHS]

Well, I got a buddy of mine with a far better photography setup to take some shots of a fired case (as well as cases he shot from his G17), and sent them to Freedom. Thus far, they've been pretty receptive, offering to take it back for testing and either replace the ammo or refund my money, as I choose. Can't argue with their response to this point.

[PPGMD]

Doesn't surprise me.

Freedom has horrible quality control. I will get a shipment with 2,000 rounds with no issues. And the next shipment will have 2-3% that have some sort of issue. For example a couple of years ago during a Bob Vogel class, I was having a 1-2% failure to fire rate from a gun that had no consistent problems in the 10,000 rounds I have fired through it previously. When I got home I gauged the remaining portion of the ammo, 25% failed my case gauge, with about 1% being horrible failures. The most recent 3,000 rounds I had four really light loads (light enough that if it didn't hit a plate I checked for a squib), 3 of which failed to eject.

In all I've probably fired 10-12 case of Freedom Munitions. I will probably continue to shoot it as it is so cheap. But I use much better ammo as match ammo.

[HCM]

Just another data point for Freedom Munitions users. Last month(March 2015) I attended Op Sec Training's Practical Fundamentals class in San Antonio, TX. During the second day of the class, we had shooters experience three squib loads with two different lots Freedom 9mm. One gentleman had two squib loads from one lot of Freedom Re-manufactured 9mm. The two squibs were from different boxes of ammo within the same lot. The second gentleman had one squib with Freedom new manufacture 9mm.

[Morbidbattlecry]

I used to really like the stuff. Then i got afraid of it. After the big scare they had frequent seating depth issues and bullet set back issues. I stay away from them now. Sadly i trust Tula and Wolf more then FM.

[HCM]

The only issues I've seen with Tula and Wolf have been hard primers / failure to fire. I can live with that in practice ammo.

There were a couple shooters in the aforementioned PF class using Precision Delta re-manufactured 9mm. They reported no issues an highly recommended it.

[LHS]

I sent 350 rounds back to FM (300 from the case that I had issues with, and 50 from an up-until-then unopened case, just to have them check those too). They sent me a shipping label, and shipped me replacement ammo the same day that I shipped mine to them. It arrived today, and appears to be 350rds of remanufactured 115gr 9mm. Given the issues with their 'new' cases, I can't really complain. At least this way I get (hopefully) good factory cases to reload once I've shot this stuff. I'll check back with their CS rep and see if they have tested my new case. Either way, I doubt I'll order more. It just seems too risky to save $15 over Blazer Brass or something similar, especially if I have any issues reloading that odd brass.

[1986s4]

That case looks like it was made in two different pieces and press fit together..? Dang.

[richiecotite]

whats the headstamp on that brass? Is it Ammoland?

[JMS]

Dunno, I'll look if I still have it.

[JMS]

It reads "IMT" and "9mm Luger."

[LHS]

It reads "IMT" and "9mm Luger."

Same as mine. That seems to be their standard 'new' brass case.